AboveDeepBuggy Some things I liked some I did not.

MamaGravity good back-story, and good acting

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

gridoon2018 A rather strange movie - because everyone plays it straight except Charlie Ruggles, who acts as if he is in a slapstick comedy! He plays a marketing man for a municipal zoo who is deathly afraid of animals, and he made me chuckle once or twice, but a little of him goes a long way. The film is thinly plotted, but it contains some fascinating animal footage, and Lionel Atwill is perversely pleasurable to watch as the villain; he is murderously mad with jealousy and desire for his unfaithful wife (Kathleen Burke). It's roles like this one that have made him one of the most important predecessors of horror icons such as Vincent Price. **1/2 out of 4.

Prichards12345 Murders in The Zoo represents Lionel Atwill at his evil best, and is a film that just about beat the rigid enforcement of the Hays Code. Many of the horror set pieces would never have made it past the censors had the film been released in 1934 and though they may be tame today must have given contemporary audiences quite a horror kick.Atwill plays Eric Gorman, a millionaire hunter- trapper busy procuring specimens for a large Metropolitan Zoo in French Indo China. Gorman possesses quite a jealous streak and at the opening of the movie is seen stitching the lips together of a Lothario who tried to kiss his wife! Whether it's using the venom of a Green Mamba to get rid of another love rival, feeding his wife to the alligators to prevent her going to the police or releasing wild animals to hamper his pursuers Atwill is a hoot. There's sterling support from Kathleen Burke as his long suffering wife, and Randolph Scott - his second horror appearance after Supernatural! - as a young toxicologist. This less said about Charles Ruggles' publicity agent the better.Preposterous? Certainly! Entertaining? Definitely! Give Murders in the Zoo a spin and you'll be engaged, amused and possibly even a little shocked. The opening is pretty gruesome even by today's standards...

dougdoepke Wacko scientist Atwill returns from jungle with a load of wild animals for zoo and a load of mad at rivals for his wife.About the time the revenge-minded Atwill runs his hand over the shapely Burke's resisting chest, a kinky gleam in his eye, we know we're in pre-Code territory. And catch that big cat brawl at the end, like nothing else I've seen and a good thing I haven't, since who knows what they did to get those cats into such a frenzy. Yes indeed, behind the unimaginative title lies half a wacked-out horror movie that could only have come from a time when Hollywood was still unzippered. The other half parachuted in from some strange planet where Charlie Ruggles gets laughs. Here his lame schtick only suggests he's nuttier than Atwill and that the python got the wrong man. My guess is the producers looked at the no-name credits, talked to comedy director Sutherland, and added the better-known Ruggles to top the cast list. Too bad a James Whale or a Tod Browning wasn't in charge.The horror half, on the other hand, is genuinely creepy. Catch that dress-up banquet—all the nice ladies and gentlemen feasting while the big cats in the background have their own feasting ideas. Or the sadistic Atwill getting turned-on by who knows what. And isn't it a good thing there're no sewing machines in the jungle. Now, if someone could just replace Atwill's weird pocket-contents with ordinary things like dimes and quarters, party guests would stop keeling over and zoos would be a lot safer.Then too, someone behind the camera knows an artistic set-up when he sees it. These pop up now and again, so the horror gets something of an extra visual dimension. And I really like the big-eyed Burke. She's kind of a Myrna Loy look-alike, but with angular features even more exotic. Too bad she left the business so soon. And too bad the movie's only half a horror classic, though, come to think of it, the Ruggles half is a horror classic of a different, more distressing kind. Anyway, the 60-minutes appears to inhabit its own weird bi-polar universe, so don't miss it.

dbborroughs Who said the old horror movie weren't graphic, this baby begins with Lionel Atwill sewing a man's mouth closed before feeding him to the animals and going on from there. Great classic horror film thats been picked apart over the years for other films but its never really been done as good as this. The plot is simple, Atwill runs the zoo and uses the animals to dispose of people who annoy him or try to get too close to the women he loves. Its dark and creepy stuff that sends shivers up and down your spine, not so much for what it shows, which isn't much, but for what it doesn't. If you want the perfect mixture of terror of the eyes and terror of the mind this is it. Perfectly paced and played it does what it does and gets off. I can't recommend this film enough. Its great (even if its a tad creaky)